Russian Roulette
by Erik's Champion
Summary: After Yami leaves, Yugi doesn't know what to do with his life. Will he be able to put together the peices, or will he attempt to solve his problems through the classic game of self destruction? Oneshot.


**Disclaimer: **I do not own anything even partially related with Yu-Gi-Oh in any way, shape, or form, and I think it's rather silly that I must constantly reestablish that. But hey, the rules must be obeyed.

**Summary:** Obviously, you'll have to read all the way to the _end_ if you want to know what _really_ happens, but let's just say that Yuugi learns that not all games are not always as "innocent" as Duel Monsters, and sometimes it's good to not be the "Winner." I imagine that this takes place about a year after the end of the series.

**Warnings:** As stated in the previous summary, this tale contains Yuugi doing rather emo things with revolvers as he plays the classic game of high-stakes self-destruction. So, you're officially warned. Don't flame me for being disturbing or anything like that.

* * *

Yuugi missed light. Actually, there were many things that he missed, but light was the most relevant at the moment. As Yuugi tiptoed through the indomitable darkness of his grandfather's game shop—hesitant to turn on the harsh artificial lights lest he draw unnecessary attention to himself—he couldn't help but wonder where all the sunlight had gone so quickly. Hadn't it not been that long ago, just a few hours previously, that the sun's warm rays had heated these counters, making them feel as warm to the touch as human flesh? A few last ghosts of warmth, the little that survived that sudden onslaught of nightfall, clung to the lifeless surfaces. Yuugi doubted that it would last long, there was little that could survive these conditions. 

After all his years, all his exploits, and all the adventures that had taken place between these four walls, Yuugi thought that he had never seen the shop enclosed in utter darkness such as this. When he pictured the shop in his mind, it was always flooded with crisp morning light, occasionally the soft hues of the afternoon, but always full and always happy.

He knew his way about the place at a level that was higher than mere intuition, he probably could have stocked the shelves with a blindfold on. This place, more than anywhere else on earth, was his home, his temple, his favorite place in the waking world and the sanctuary he always retreated to in his dreams. If it was possible, Yuugi would have embedded himself in the place, infused his core into those counters, cases, shelves, anything. He had lived in this shop, really lived, more than anywhere else.

All this considered, lurking about in the dark tonight, the place felt wholly foreign to him. As a child—it was safe to say that Yuugi was no longer a child—the shop had taught him, shown him how to reach out and take hold of his own destiny, encouraged him to solve problems, allowed him to make friends. In his most idealistic days, every object and every square centimeter had seemed alive with possibility; so much life had radiated from it that it had often seemed about to burst with the force of it all. Nothing had given Yuugi greater pleasure. Sure, he had had his shinning moments of glory, he had felt the pride of personal achievement, and that was a feeling that was hard to beat. But it was different. In the moments when he solved a problem or defeated a foe, he felt joy because he imagined that nothing could be greater than him. When he was a child, inspecting with wide and wondrous eyes the latest delivery, he had felt the joy that comes from knowing, undoubtedly, that everything was.

That was all gone now. And what was he left with? The dark, and the difficultly.

Yuugi surveyed his dead kingdom. Yes, it was a kingdom, and he had once been its king. His subjects had adored him, and how could they not? However, be it through rebellion, economic disparity, faulty foreign policy, or simply a lost will to govern, the monarchy had failed. There had been a few bursts of anarchy every so often, new kings wanting to ascend to the throne, but none of them had been worthy.

Now, Yuugi wandered among the mementoes of his lost childhood, trying to heed their cries, trying to rule based on the will of the people. But there was nothing. No cries to be heard, no will to be heeded. They had once spoken to him, his loyal subjects, but in the last few months, their voices had faltered almost instantly. Ever since that fateful moment when Yuugi had examined his beloved cards and realized that they no longer spoke to him, he had refused to let the thought enter his mind of what might have happened to those voices. But now, alone, in the gloom, lost, and worried, there was nothing to do but let his darkest thoughts break from their locked chamber and run rampant in the forefront of his mind.

As Yuugi had parted from his Dark, his friend, his other side, he knew that his life would change drastically. After all, having a second soul is something that tends to leave an impact to people. But he had never expected this. When Yami had left the voices had gone with him. Those cards, which he had once been able to guide, that had respected and loved him, that had allowed him to defeat the side of evil over and over again, had turned as lifeless as leaves on a sodden ground. They used to be souls, now they were just paper. Duel Monsters had gone from his chance to save the world to—well, to put it simply, a children's card game. It had terrified Yuugi beyond belief the first time he had tried to play after Yami's departure. There was no longer any passion in the game, no life. It was as if someone had forcibly removed the Heart of the Cards a replaced it with a giant iron stone. Or worse, with nothing at all. All the motivation Yuugi had once felt was nowhere to be found. He used to believe in what he was playing for, now he wasn't sure what he believed at all.

In his subsequent state of despair, Yuugi wondered, what was the point of it all? Was all his talent, all that he had loved, all that given him something to fight for, was it all for the benefit of something, or some_one_ else who had been planning to leave him devoid and comatose once his agenda had been fulfilled? Yuugi did not mind the idea of working for a higher power; on the contrary, it gave him a sense of duty, a feeling of importance in a world where his place could instantly be taken away. What he could not stand was the feeling that his purpose had been unjustly yanked from him without the slightest warning or sense of decency.

Yuugi often thought of Kaiba now. He remembered how he had pitied him, in the way we pity people we know that we cannot change, when he had denied again and again the existence of the Heart of the Cards. Yuugi had thought what a shame it was for someone so young to live in an emotionless world, where everything was one leveled, where everything was guided by the cold and cruel hands of logic and reason with no room left for the spiritual. Yuugi had wanted to help him, but he knew that it wasn't possible. He knew Kaiba would have to find it in himself to rediscover his soul, to see the faults in this atheistic ways and submit to the unconquerable. Now Yuugi thought that it was him who needed curing.

Those cards, those games, had been his life. He had friends of course, and school, and family, those were all constants that weren't likely to change anytime in the near future, but he could not be sure of anything else anymore. His belief in the power of those games and puzzles had contained all the mysteries worth knowing, it had urged him on and on, made him believe that he could actually learn something about the nature of life if he could solve them. But he had been wrong. This whole adventure—and saying "adventure" is a great understatement, hadn't been about him after all, it had never been about him at all. It had been about _him_, the other Yuugi, the one who had been the interpreter of the games, the one who really spoke their language. Yuugi had learned so much from him, or at least, he had thought that he had. As soon as Yami's spirit had evaporated from Yuugi's slight body, all his lessons, all his knowledge, had disappeared as quickly as a candle in the wind.

Yuugi had tried to light that candle. It wouldn't light. The wick always refused to burn just as the cards refused to come alive in his once deft hands. The Dark Magician, once his spiritual companion, was now an illustration created by an employee of Pegasus back in the ancient days before Duel Monsters had reentered the world that had been copied by machine onto probably thousands pieces of paper that reached all corners of the world.

The spirit who had once been his God was dead; Yuugi doubted whether he had ever lived at all. There had really been only one man that these games had been made for, and he was on a higher plane now. He had ascended to that intangible universe that Yuugi had once been able to reach back in his blissful days of youth, and now the door he had once walked through with ease was closed, never again to be opened. Slowly, Yuugi had to come with terms that the kingdom he had once had the audacity to preside over had never been his to rule; and the thought was crushing him to the innermost depths of his being.

The fame had been a lie, the attention that everyone had pretended to pour on him when they really should have been cheering for someone else. It had all been a lovely façade, a pleasant dream that he had had to wake from. Hitting the snooze button wouldn't keep the sun from rising.

Looking at his fallen idols, his broken past, Yuugi had the urge to destroy it all. Perhaps is he could efface the building, annihilate the games that taunted him because they knew that he could no longer solve them, maybe if he could take down the backdrop once and for all, he could finally see the stage behind it, and forget the play entirely. Sets and costumes were lousy distractions, pitiful attempts trying to recreate life through second-rate metaphors. It wasn't real. If his cards were really just paper, if their Heart, the most pure thing in existence, could vanish without a trace, nothing was real. Games were poor symbols for life, simply a few pretty ornaments that entertained for a time then tricked people into thinking that there were things worth believing in. Yuugi hated them for the lies they had made him believe. Lies about the spirit, about life, about who he was.

Before Yami's exodus, Yuugi had had a core, a fail-safe if all nothing else should work. Yuugi might have been a little boy with no knowledge of the world's harsh realities, but he had always known that, if need be, he could be in control, he could defeat, and he could win with grace and honor. Now, Yuugi had all the knowledge he would ever need, but his education left him more of a little boy than he had been before. He missed the resonance in his voice, the pride in his stature, the hard look in his eyes that could strike fear in the hearts of the impure. But, that had never been him. Yuugi had been so caught up in the world of games that he had forgotten how to interact with people, he had never learned self-assurance on his own, and now he never would. Yuugi, the Yuugi that he had led himself to believe that he could be, was either gone for good or had never really existed. It was all as big a lie as those cards. Yuugi's life was essentially annihilated, so why not destroy that life's creator? It seemed to fit, that everything be gone that had ever deceived him.

He stared in a state of hypnosis at his old favorites. All these cards, the possession of which people had lost their lives and changed the course of humanity for, all looked about as vivacious as fish at a market. It could not have possibly been worth it. Your soul…for some pieces of paper that were adorned with pretty drawings? What kind of world was it where that logic made any kind of sense? Yuugi knew exactly what world that was, a world he had once loved, a world of fools who played games that intimated life because they couldn't stand the pressures of actually living.

Yuugi thought of Kaiba again. That was a factor they had always had in common. The desire to win at card games because they both knew that they could never handle existing on anyone else's terms. So they escaped. But there was no evading now, Yuugi could only stand as tall as he could (quite a remarkable feat) and face what he had so long failed him. And that was why he could not tear that shop to the ground. It was painful to sell those cards to the bright-eyed children that visited the shop on weekends, knowing that he was selling them something that was just about as real as the Easter Bunny. For their money he gave them something that made them feel special, like they could change the world with just as much grace as their hero. And there was something in Yuugi that just could not take that away. He realized now the truth behind the fables, and he couldn't bear to enforce that feeling of isolation on anyone else. Let them believe, if it was all they had.

Yet, the problem remained. Yuugi wanted to feel the warmth of the games again, wanted again to feel that he belonged to something _real, _he wanted to think, if only for a moment, that he was fighting for something worth defending again. And he wanted to be a winner in his own right. He wanted a victory that no one could ever credit to someone else.

He examined his options. Nothing would do. All these games were lifeless, pointless, empty. Checkers, cards, board games, what would a victory in those fields prove? Nothing. Yuugi wanted something _real_, and he would not be at rest until he found something that made sense. Yuugi was sick of symbols; he wanted something that was unambiguous, where there was no question of interpretation. He wanted something powerful enough that it could unflinchingly face life's evils full in the face. He wanted something that brimmed with life in the way that was so familiar and yet so far away.

Yuugi tore through the shop. He knew the layout by heart, but everywhere he turned all he found were evasions and clever little lies. There had to be something, a game that transcended all levels of reality, whose meaning was as clear as day and didn't attempt to hide the truth behind layers of subtext.

This struggle took a lot out of him, and Yuugi flung himself dejectedly into the desk at the back of the shop where the cash register was. He buried his face in his hands, and would have pounded his fists against the table if he didn't fear making noise this late at night. Yuugi was supposed to be the king of games; that was what they called him. His title was gone, leaving only Yuugi, a fearful little boy trying to learn to be a man who was afraid of waking his grandfather. What kind of king was that? Yuugi raised his head, examining his reflection in the glass surface of the desk. Through the image of his face, he could see the ground below, for the first time life looked as flat and transparent as it felt. He stared into that face for he could not tell how long. He looked for messages in the glass. There were none. He prayed for help; none came. He hoped against hope for a sign, there was nothing. Just a big empty universe staring him the face that would never look away.

Maybe it was fate, maybe luck, maybe there were some forces at work that Yuugi could never comprehend, but something compelled him to look in the bottom drawer. He had never opened it before, never had reason to. But something told him the game he needed was in the bottom drawer. He pulled it open, not without difficulty, the metal stalled and grinded the way things do when they protect things that aren't meant to be seen. However, Yuugi was determined, and he flung open the doors to his destiny.

The newfound chamber contained one item: a shiny, solid, revolver. His grandfather had probably put it there after the Blues Eyes White Dragon incident in case Kaiba ever tried to show his face inside again. Yuugi had seen guns before, but never touched one, never heard one in action, never smelled the odor of one that has just been fired singeing the inside of his nose. And his curiosity overtook him. He reached down with a slow and heavy hand and retrieved his prize. It was heavy, and felt just as solid as it looked. There were no illusions here, only the truth, plain and simple. After all, there is really only one thing that a gun is good for.

He raised the weapon in the shadow, carefully examining its contours. This was what we wanted. He could win with this thing. But what games were there to play…with a gun? Yuugi had enjoyed the logic of games, the strategy, the imagination and creativity. Guns seem to be rather lacking in those arenas, but Yuugi was nothing if not industrious. With a little thought, he could remember one game, a game he would never have considered playing if he were not very, very desperate.

The rules of the game of Russian Roulette are almost disturbingly simple. Using a revolver, all but one of the chambers is emptied of its bullet. Players take turns spinning the barrel, pointing the device at their head, and pulling the trigger. Sometimes they play for money, sometimes to show that they are not afraid of death. Sometimes they play 'til only one man is left standing, surrounded by the carnage of his former opponents. To Yuugi, the idea was sickening and terrifying. This was clearly a game with no lies, no excuses, and no false pretense. If he could win at this game, he could face what he had feared for so long. He emptied the chambers, leaving only one filled. He had the bravery, he had the strength, but he didn't have a partner. Well, he could change that. Looking himself unfalteringly in the eye through the glass, he tried to imitate the fearless, cool look of his other.

"I guess we'll take turns," he instructed.

"I guess so," he replied.

"I'll go first," Yuugi stated matter-of-factly. He didn't want his other half to think that he was weak. He boldly spun the barrel, trying to make the act look careless. He pulled the trigger, nothing. He considered it a personal failing that he was instantly overcome with relief. But no matter what, he had to stay calm, _he had to win_. Yuugi tried to hide a grimace of disgust as his other plucked up the gun. Where Yuugi was faking, this man handled the instrument with ease, gently pulled the trigger, and seemed completely unfazed when nothing happened. His confidence revolted him, how could he be so fearless in the face of death?

Yuugi retrieved the gun. He couldn't be shown up, in this crazy game of his devices. He might not be able to win at life, he might not even medal in it, but games had always been his forte. His. Not a spirit's who dropped in one day from an ancient Egyptian puzzle and then left without little more than a second thought. No matter what, Yuugi could not be defeated, he refused to accept it. As his had wavered, the gun pointing towards his mountain of hair, he tried to collect himself, but to no avail.

"Who are you kidding, Yuugi? You think this will really help you? This is so like you really, just like how you solved that puzzle because you were incapable of handling the puzzles of real life. You hid. And look at you, you're hopeless. Your first glimpse of adult life and what do you do, point a gun to your head. Yeah, that's real mature. Maybe tomorrow you can run blindly through the freeway and see what you learn from that. You were always such a fool."

"No, that's not true! This is evidence, isn't it? Evidence of daring, courage! It's not hiding. Everyone is afraid of death, right? This is a chance to conquer death…" To win. Yuugi wanted to win this game more than anything. He spun the barrel again, with fury. He pulled the trigger with rage. The spirit regarded him dryly.

"Congratulations, Yuugi. You won. And now, what did you learn from that?"

A funny thing about the game of Russian Roulette: The "winner" is the man who takes the bullet. It is supposed to be a lovely dose of irony, that the victor never has the chance to savor the defeat of his partner. It was supposed to be a comment on the kind of people who play the game. The prize is to stop living, to escape from the horror that is being. To put it simply, it is a game for the suicidal, but for the folks who still want to go out in style. A desperate game for desperate people, and not the kind of game that Solomon would have chosen to put on full display in those bright and happy display cases.

**

* * *

A/N: **So, umm, hopefully that didn't disturb too many people? I don't know, I kind of disturbed myself writing it, I'm really not a morbid person. But also, hopefully you liked it, maybe even a little? Any comment/criticism/questions/whatever else you've got would be greatly appreciated if you're ready and willing to share 'em. And if I get no feedback I'll just figure that I went off the charts on the emo scale and know that I should tone it down for next time. 

And by the way, has anyone ever read the part of the Amber Spyglass when Lyra discovers that she can't read the aleithiometer anymore? I imagine that's how Yuugi feels when his cards stop "talking" to him.


End file.
